While it has long been suspected that public
and elite opinion differ on the issue of immigration, a new poll provides the
most compelling evidence yet that there is an enormous gap between the
American people and "opinion leaders" on the issue. The survey also suggests
that the gap between the public and elites has actually widened since the
September 11 terrorist attacks.

This Backgrounder is based on the findings of a recent
national poll conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in May
through July of this year. The Council is a non-profit policy organization that
sponsors polls and events on a host of foreign policy issues. The Council has a
long tradition of polling to find differences between the public and opinion
leaders.

The polling of the public was based on 2,800 telephone
interviews from across the nation. The council also surveyed nearly 400 opinion
leaders, including members of Congress, the administration, and leaders of
church groups, business executives, union leaders, journalists, academics, and
leaders of major interest groups. (The full results of the survey can be found
at
http://www.worldviews.org/detailreports/usreport/html/ch5s5.html) This
Backgrounder is the first detailed examination of the pollís results on the
issue of immigration.

* The results of the survey indicate that the gap between
the opinions of the American people on immigration and those of their leaders
is enormous. The poll found that 60 percent of the public regards the present
level of immigration to be a "critical threat to the vital interests of the
United States," compared to only 14 percent of the nationís leadership Ė a 46
percentage point gap.

* The current gap is even wider than that found in 1998,
when 55 percent of the public viewed immigration as a "critical threat,"
compared to 18 percent of opinion leaders Ė a 37 percentage point gap.

* The poll results indicate that there is no other foreign
policy-related issue on which the American people and their leaders disagreed
more profoundly than immigration. Even on such divisive issues as
globalization or strengthening the United Nations, the public and the elite
are much closer together than they are on immigration.

* When asked a specific question about whether legal
immigration should be reduced, kept the same, or increased, 55 percent of the
public said it should be reduced, and 27 percent said it should remain the
same. In contrast, only 18 percent of opinion leaders said it should be
reduced and 60 percent said it should remain the same. There was no other
issue-specific question on which the public and elites differed more widely.

* The enormous difference between elite and public opinion
can also be seen on the issue of illegal immigration. The survey found that 70
percent of the public said that reducing illegal immigration should be a "very
important" foreign-policy goal of the United States, compared to only 22
percent of elites.

* Also with respect to illegal immigration, when
the public was asked to rank the biggest foreign policy problems, the public
ranked illegal immigration sixth, while elites ranked it 26th.

* The very large difference between elite and public
opinion explains the current political stalemate on immigration. For example,
supporters of an amnesty for illegal immigrants have broad elite support
ranging from religious to business and union leaders. Normally elite support
of this kind would lead to policy changes, but on this issue public opposition
is so strong that it creates a political stalemate.

* Continued deep public dissatisfaction with current
immigration policy indicates that candidates or political parties that
advocate a reduction in immigration might reap a significant political
benefit. This is especially true because it could be marketed as "anti-elite"
and more in sync with the American people, a message that has traditionally
been well received by voters.

* President Bushís efforts to grant amnesty to illegal
immigrants appear to be hurting him politically. While 53 percent of the
public said his handling of foreign policy overall was excellent or good, on
immigration only 27 percent said his handling of immigration was good or
excellent; moreover, 70 percent rated Bush as poor or fair on immigration. the
lowest rating he received on any foreign policy-related issue.

For many years the Chicago Council has polled to find
differences between the public and "opinion leaders." Harris Interactive
conducted the poll for the Council. The polling of the public included 2,862
telephone interviews from a scientific sampling of the nation in June. In
addition, 397 telephone interviews were conducted with opinion leaders between
May and July of this year. Included in the survey of leaders were: top
executives of the Fortune 1000 corporations; presidents of the largest labor
unions; TV and radio news directors, network newscasters, newspaper editors and
columnists; leaders of all religious faiths, chosen proportionate to the number
of Americans who worship in each; presidents of large special interest groups
and think tanks with an emphasis on foreign policy matters; presidents and
faculty of universities; members of the U.S. House and Senate; and assistant
secretaries and other senior staff in the Administration. In this
Backgrounder, the terms "elite" and "leaders" are used synonymously with
"opinion leaders."

It is a well established fact in public opinion polling that
most Americans for nearly all of the last quarter century have desired
reductions in legal and illegal immigration. However, in general, federal
lawmakers have moved in the opposite direction of their constituentsí desires,
continually raising the numerical level of legal immigration and failing to take
steps to reduce illegal migration.

Some commentators thought that after the September 11 attacks
members of Congress might move toward the opinion of their constituents. The
findings of the new poll indicate why there has been no effort to reduce
immigration. While 60 percent of the public is apparently concerned by the
number of foreign nationals being allowed into the country, (see Figure 1) since
the terrorist attacks of last year, federal officials have continually advocated
policies that would likely increase the flow of immigration Ė or at least
embraced policies that indicate little desire to enforce immigration laws. For
example:

* Dick Gephardt, then-House Democratic Minority Leader,
proposed in October 2002 an amnesty for most of the 8.5 million illegal aliens
in the country. The White House has also indicated its desire for amnesty,
although at least so far only the three to four million illegal aliens from
Mexico would be eligible. The administration also wishes to create a new guest
worker program for Mexicans.

* President George W. Bush has repeatedly pressured
Congress to pass an amnesty for perhaps 500,000 to a million illegal aliens
under a provision known as Section 245(i).

* Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) succeeded in moving a bill
through the House Judiciary Committee to make it much easier for immigrants
convicted of felonies to remain in the United States.

* Senate Democrats inserted without debate into the
Homeland Security bill provisions that reversed changes to asylum procedures
enacted in 1996. The changes would have again allowed a larger share of
applicants for asylum to be paroled into the country rather than remaining in
detention.

Anybody confused about how federal leadership could advocate
policies that so boldly contradict the publicís desire after the 9/11 attacks
can find substantial explanation in the Chicago Council of Foreign Relationsí
polling of both the public and the countryís leadership. The results indicate
that although federal officials are not following the desires of the public,
they are very much in tune with the views of the top leaders of Americaís
institutions.

Among scores of questions about all kinds of foreign policy
issues, interviewers used this wording: "I am going to read to you a list of
possible threats to the vital interest of the United States in the next 10
years. For each one, please tell me if you see this as a critical threat, an
important but not critical threat, or not an important threat at all." The
responses concerning immigration and other issues are shown in Table 1.

As already discussed, 60 percent of the public, compared to
14 percent of elites, think that immigration is a critical threat to the nation.
Table 1 shows that the 46-percentage-point gap in the attitudes of elites is by
far the largest. The next largest gap between opinion leaders and the public is
only about half as large (24 percentage points) and addresses the issues of
competition with low-wage countries and Japan.

In addition to the 60 percent who see immigration as a
critical threat, another 31 percent thought the issue was important but not
critical. Thus, only a tiny minority of the American people (8 percent) remain
unconcerned by the large number of people currently allowed into the country. In
contrast, 41 percent of opinion leaders do not find the influx to be an
important threat at all. In other words, opinion leaders are five times more
likely than members of the public to find the size of the influx to be
unimportant as a threat. Table 1 shows that among the 20 threats posed to the
leaders, the "not important" rating for immigration was higher than for all but
the threats from the military power of Russia, and from the economic competition
from Japan and from low-wage nations. Immigration is simply not on the radar of
the elite, whereas the public seems to be quite concerned about the issue.

Of course, some segment of the elite does see the issue as an
important threat. Table 1 shows that 45 percent of opinion leaders see it as
important but not critical. Overall, 59 percent of opinion leader compared to 91
percent of the public believe that the size of the foreign flow into the United
States is at least an "important" or "critical" issue. But of course, because
political pressure for change tends to come from those with intense feelings,
only those who judge the threat as "critical" are likely to act. And as we have
seen, those opinion leaders who see it as a critical threat are outnumbered 3-1
by those who see no threat.

The huge difference in public and elite perception also
exists on the issue of illegal immigration. Table 2 shows the share of the elite
and the public who think reducing illegal immigration should be an important
foreign policy goal of the United States. The goals are ranked based on the
percentage-point difference between the public and opinion leaders. The second
largest difference between the public and elite is found on the issue of
reducing illegal immigration. In fact, the 48-percentage-point difference found
in Table 2 is only slightly smaller than the 50 percentage point gap that exist
on the issue of protecting the jobs of American workers. Taken together the
results in Tables 1 and 2 indicate that there are few if any issues on which the
American people and elites differ more profoundly than on immigration.

One of the most interesting findings in the poll of elites is
that there has not been any increase in concern among Americaís opinion leaders
on the issue of immigration. The Chicago Councilís sampling of leaders was
designed to replicate the cross-section of leaders polled in previous years so
that changes could be tracked over time. Figure 1 shows the percentage of the
public and opinion leaders who thought "large numbers of immigrants and refugees
coming into the United States" was a "critical threat to the vital interests of
the United States" in 1998 and 2002. The attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon by foreign-born terrorists seem to have increased the share of the
public concerned about immigration. In contrast, elite concern has actually
declined since 1998. Thus the gap between elite and public opinion widened from
an already large 37 points in 1998 to 46 points in 2002.

It should be noted that concern over immigration was higher
for both elites and the public in 1994. This was only one year after the first
bombing of the World Trade Center, and the nation was also just coming out of
recession. In 1994, 72 percent of the public and 31 percent of elites thought
immigration was a critical threat. However, it should be noted that the gap
between elite and public opinion is now larger than in 1994.

By 1998 the country was in the middle of an economic
expansion, and concern over terrorism had receded. As a result, the share of the
public concerned about immigration dropped dramatically to 55 percent among the
public and to 18 percent for leaders. The larger share of the elite concerned
about immigration in 1994 goes a long way toward explaining why the chief debate
after the first World Trade Center bombing was primarily about measures to
reduce legal and illegal immigration. In the end, a few new restrictions were
placed on illegal migration while measures to reduce legal immigration were set
aside, but there were no debates at the time about whether to increase
immigration.

Today, however, members of Congress are hearing from opinion
leaders who tip in the opposite way: As shown in Table 1, the portion viewing
immigration as a critical threat is only one-third the size of the portion
seeing it as unimportant (14 percent vs. 41 percent). Perhaps as a result,
members of Congress now are primarily debating measures to increase immigration.

Political Leaders Respond
to Elites
As is the case with most public policy issues, immigration policy is primarily
shaped by opinion leaders. The fact that leaders seemingly have not changed
their views on immigration since September 11th goes a long way to explaining
why Congress and the President have reacted to the 9/11 attacks so much more
favorably with respect to immigration policy than might have been expected Of
course, this leads to two questions: Why have academics and media officials,
union and corporate executives, religious and think tank leaders so disconnected
these acts of terrorism from their views of immigration? Or conversely, why has
the public attached these terrorist acts with immigration?

Whatever the answer to these questions, the results of the
polling indicate that if the public is to win the immigration policies it
desires, it will have to deliver its opinion directly to members of Congress at
a noise level sufficient to drown out the leaders of most of the countryís
institutions. Citizens may also need to engage the leaders of their own unions,
religious organizations, alumni associations, and special interest groups and
their local media to at least create enough division to muffle those leadersí
voices that are currently so strongly in favor of expanding immigration numbers.
Alternatively, for those who would like to increase immigration, or who oppose
efforts to reduce illegal immigration, it is important that they petition
Congress for changes while attracting as little public attention as possible.
Given public opposition, the more aware the public becomes of efforts to
increase immigration, the less likely such changes will pass Congress.

Does Immigration Matter to
the Public?
The public may feel that immigration is a threat, but are those feelings
sufficiently strong to make a concerted effort to push for changes? One common
assumption is that citizens do not act on their opinions about an issue unless
that issue is one of the two or three most important issues to them. The polling
by the Chicago Council indicates the American public may be approaching that
point regarding immigration, but it is not there yet.

When the public was asked in an open-ended question to name
two or three of the biggest problems facing the country, "too many immigrants"
was listed 13th of 65 general concerns mentioned. When
asked about the nationís two or three biggest foreign policy problems, the
public listed illegal immigration as the sixth out of 69 concerns. Immigration
appears to be on the public mind, though not its highest concern.

Another place where we can gauge the saliency of immigration
is by comparing responses on a series of questions dealing with foreign policy
goals. As shown in Table 2, both the public and elites were asked if certain
foreign policy goals should be "important," "somewhat important," or "not
important" to the United States. The 70 percent of the public who said "reducing
illegal immigration" should be an important foreign policy goal made it the
sixth highest of the 20 goals the Council asked about. In fact, Table 2 shows
that a larger share of the public said reducing illegal immigration was
important than said such goals as "maintaining superior military power
worldwide," and "improving the global environment" were important. Again, the
results in Table 2 suggest that illegal immigration may be a issue that is close
to being sufficiently salient to move Americans to actively push for changes in
policy.

Interestingly, Table 2 shows that most of the goals which a
large share of the public said were important are goals that are at least partly
related to concerns about illegal immigration. Certainly, those Americans
promoting more controls against illegal immigration include as their rationale
that such controls are necessary and helpful in keeping terrorists out of the
country, protecting the jobs of American workers, and stopping the flow of
illegal drugs into the U.S.

Another indication that the public could act Ė or be
mobilized to act Ė on its desires for reduced immigration is that Americans
appear to be aware that President Bushís immigration policy is quite different
from their desires for better controls on the immigration flow and for overall
reductions in the numbers. The public was asked to rate President Bushís
performance in 13 foreign policy areas as "excellent," "good," "fair" or "poor."
When asked about the Presidentís "overall foreign policy" performance, 53
percent of the public said his handling of foreign policy overall was
"excellent" or "good." On immigration however, only 27 percent said his handling
of the issue was good or excellent. Also only 13 percent of the public rated his
overall handling of foreign policy as "poor," but on immigration, 41 percent
rated the President as "poor," another 29 percent said it was "fair," and 3
percent said they were unsure. The 70 percent rating for "poor" or "fair" was
the most negative rating Bush received on any issue. Given the publicís view of
immigration, it seems very likely that the publicís low rating of Bush on
immigration reflects his desire to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants and his
general unwillingness to reduce immigration.

It seems very likely that public opposition is the primary
reason the President and congressional Democrats have failed to persuade the
rest of Congress to go along with increases that are not even supported by the
majority of opinion leaders (21 percent). However, efforts to reduce
immigration, such as the SAFER Act (H.R. 5013), have also not generated broad
support in Congress. As shown in Table 3, this reluctance of members of Congress
to embrace reductions in legal immigration matches the desires of 60 percent of
opinion leaders who want legal immigration to remain at its current level of
more than a million a year. That contrasts with 55 percent of the public who
want reductions and 27 percent who want it to remain the same. It should also be
noted that the difference between elite and public opinion in Table 3 is, not
surprisingly, one of the widest gaps found in a series of questions dealing with
specific topics. Direct comparison on these specific questions cannot be made as
was done in Tables 1 and 2 because each question is structured differently.
Nonetheless, it does appear that the gap on legal immigration is one of the
largest found on any specific issue examined in the survey.

On illegal immigration, the nationís opinion leaders have
generally accepted the Bush administrationís disinterest, like that of the
previous administration, in enforcing most laws against illegal immigration or
in reviving interior enforcement programs of the INS. This, of course, is to be
expected because only 22 percent (Table 2) of elites thought reducing illegal
immigration should be an important goal of the United States.

With virtually no opinion leaders to represent or mobilize
the publicís majority opinion against illegal immigration, the President and the
former House Democratic Minority Leader may be able to pursue the desire for
more immigration without suffering politically. But the Chicago Councilís poll
shows that the public holds strong opinions that will make it difficult for
anyone trying to increase immigration.

Why Do Elites and Public Diverge?

The survey by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations provides one of the most
in-depth looks at attitudes about immigration among the public and elites. While
the large divergence between the two groups on the issue has long been
suspected, the Councilís survey provides the clearest evidence to date that the
public and nationís leaders have very different points of view on immigration.
But what accounts for the large difference between the public and opinion
leaders?

Table 2 provides some clues. As already discussed, the table
shows that one of the largest differences between the share of the public
compared to leaders who think an issue is important is in the area of illegal
immigration. The table also shows that a similarly large gap exists on the issue
of protecting the jobs of American workers. This strongly suggests that one of
the main reasons the public is concerned about illegal immigration, but the
elite is not, stems from the economic situation of the two groups. Opinion
leaders are overwhelmingly educated and, compared to the public, much more
affluent. Thus itís not surprising that they see little threat from illegal
immigration. It should also be recalled from Table 1 that when asked about what
constitutes a "critical threat" to the country the second largest gap, after
immigration, between the public and elites was on the issues of economic
competition from low-wage countries and Japan. Thus, while the public is clearly
concerned about its jobs and economic livelihood, opinion leaders see no threat
because they have jobs in which they face relatively little competition from
immigrants. Tables 1 and 2 strongly suggest that at least part of the reason for
the large difference between the public and the elites on immigration reflects
the class interests of the two groups. However, the huge difference between the
public and opinion leaders on the issue of immigration is an important social
phenomenon and is clearly an area in need of further exploration. What we can
say from this data is that the gap is large, persistent over time, and may in
fact be growing.

Conclusion
The polling by the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs points to the likelihood
that Congress looks to opinion leaders and not to the public for direction on
immigration issues. It is for this reason that those who have been pushing for
increased immigration have had some success in Congress since the September 11th
terrorist attacks. However, Congress is not entirely unaware of the publicís
apprehension over current immigration, as shown in this survey. As a result,
there has been a good deal of political stalemate on the issue.

The enormous gulf between the public and elites on the issue
indicates that the debate over immigration will continue to be characterized by
stalemate. On an issue of such obvious importance as immigration it would be
desirable if the country could come to some consensus on policy. This survey
suggests that such a consensus is extremely unlikely. If anything, the evidence
suggests that the gap between the American people and their leaders is growing.
It is unclear how long immigration policy can remain so divergent from public
opinion. It seems likely that at some point a politician or group of politicians
will attempt to mobilize public support for a reduction in immigration. The
evidence summarized in this Backgrounder indicates that if this were to
happen, a candidate could expect very strong support from the public, but also
very significant elite opposition from politically important groups such as the
media, business, and academia, all of whom will play a significant role in
shaping policy and the public discourse on the issue.

Roy Beck is Executive Director of the NumbersUSA
Education and Research Foundation and Steven A. Camarota is Director of
Research at the Center for Immigration Studies.